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The Phonotactics and Phonology Of ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: THE PHONOTACTICS AND PHONOLOGY OF OBSTRUENT CLUSTERS IN OPTIMALITY THEORY Frida Morelli, Doctor of Philosophy, 1999 Dissertation directed by: Professor Linda Lombardi Department of Linguistics In this dissertation, I present a typology of obstruent clusters and argue that the systematic patterns of occurrence of these clusters must be explained in sonority- independent terms. I argue that there are two dimensions along which generalizations can be made; one is the dimension where the feature [continuant] is relevant and the other is the place dimension. On the continuancy dimension, I claim that markedness relationships exist among the four types of obstruent clusters, i.e. fricative+stop, fricative+fricative, stop+fricative and stop+stop. In particular, I argue that fricative+stop clusters are the unmarked type of obstruent clusters. Their unmarkedness is assessed against a system of constraints on segment sequencing on the basis of a strategy of analysis that derives universal markedness relationships without fixed rankings. I call this ii strategy the Subset Strategy. Modern Greek and Nisqually provide evidence for my proposal, as does a cross-linguistic survey of obstruent cluster patterns. On the place dimension, I show that the typology observed can best be understood via a system of constraints that favors faithfulness to place in release positions. Relevant data from English, German, Dakota and Takelma are presented and analyzed. Finally, I argue that, s+STOP clusters are the best-formed of all the obstruent clusters because they are unmarked along both dimensions. I show that the special phonological behavior often associated with these clusters follows from the fact that they are unmarked within the dimension of obstruent clusters, and not because they are marked within the dimension of core clusters. iii THE PHONOTACTICS AND PHONOLOGY OF OBSTRUENT CLUSTERS IN OPTIMALITY THEORY by Frida Morelli Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland at College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1999 Advisory Committee: Professor Linda Lombardi, Chair/Advisor Professor Laura Benua Professor Luigi Burzio Professor Mary Ellen Scullen Professor Paul Smolensky iv © Copyright by Frida Morelli 1999 v DEDICATION To my mother, Mirella, and my late father, Antonio. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is particularly hard to find words to express my gratitude to my advisor, Linda Lombardi, for her academic as well as personal support towards the completion of this dissertation. She has not only provided me with invaluable feedback on my work but also with constant encouragement during difficult times. I am also indebted to the rest of my committee, Laura Benua, Luigi Burzio, Mary Ellen Scullen, and Paul Smolensky for their comments, advice, and feedback. Special thanks to Laura Benua for her input on my work, for the Phonology Reading Group at her house, and nice conversations on topics other than phonology. I would also like to thank Paul Smolensky for helping me understand the intricacies of Optimality Theory during his seminars at Johns Hopkins and for those appointments that I was lucky enough to steal from his busy schedule. I especially thank him for sticking with me until the end and for his kind words of encouragement during rough times. Thanks are also due to the rest of the faculty of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland and Kathi Faulkingham for their support during my doctoral study, as well as to Dee Ann Holinsky, Charlie Jones and Steven Weinberger at George Mason University for introducing me to the study of Linguistics. Thanks also to John McCarthy, Donca Steriade and audiences at HOT 97, LASSO 97, NELS 28, LSA 98, “The Syllable: Typology and Theory” in vii Tübingen (1998), the “NSF Workshop on Syllable Structure and Gesture Timing” at Ohio State University (1998), RUMD 97 and 99, for comments and feedback during the development of this dissertation. I would also like to thank all the linguists who have replied to a query that I posted on the Linguist List, and especially Ellen Kaisse for providing crucial data for the analysis presented here. Next, I would like to thank my fellow funologists at the University of Maryland, Haruka Fukazawa, Pat Hironymous, Viola Miglio, Bruce Morén and Caro Struijke, for sharing all the ups and downs of our doctoral study and much more. Thanks to Mits Ota for joining us from Georgetown and sharing these moments with us too. For their support, encouragement and friendship I would like to thank Stefania Amodeo, Andrea Gualmini, Shirley Mani, Luisa Meroni, Mitsue Motomura, Acrisio Pires, Riccardo Sala, Elizabeth Stranges, Eden Teklu and Eileen Timothy. Special thanks go to Mark Yancey for providing me with emotional support and for rescuing my work from the many computer crashes that have haunted my dissertation. I would also like to thank Daniele Struppa for giving me the opportunity to start my career as a linguist in the United States. Least, but not last, I would like to thank my mother, Mirella, and my sister, Daniela, for everything they have done to allow me to make this dissertation come to an end! viii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: CLUSTER PHONOTACTICS AND THE SONORITY SEQUENCING PRINCIPLE_____________________________ 1 1.1 Introduction __________________________________________________ 1 1.2 Sonority and the Sonority Sequencing Principle_______________________ 4 1.2.1 Sonority___________________________________________________ 4 1.2.2 Sonority Scales______________________________________________ 5 1.2.3 The Sonority Sequencing Principle ______________________________ 7 1.3 Optimality Theory______________________________________________ 9 1.3.1 Basic Architecture ___________________________________________ 9 1.3.2 Markedness as Harmony _____________________________________ 10 1.3.3 Implicational Universals _____________________________________ 16 1.4 Background Assumptions________________________________________ 20 1.5 The Sonority Sequencing Principle and Optimality Theory _____________ 22 1.6 Summary of the chapter. ________________________________________ 28 CHAPTER 2: THE ONSET TYPOLOGY_______________________________ 30 2.1 Introduction _________________________________________________ 30 2.2 Methodology _________________________________________________ 32 2.2.1 Obstruent Clusters: Definition ________________________________ 32 2.2.2 The Status of Affricates ______________________________________ 33 2.2.3 SF Sequences: Clusters or Singletons? _________________________ 35 2.2.4 The Sampled Languages _____________________________________ 36 2.2.5 Syllable Onsets _____________________________________________ 38 2.2.6 Morphologically Complex Clusters _____________________________ 39 2.2.7 Non-native Phonotactics______________________________________ 39 2.3 Onset Generalizations __________________________________________ 41 2.4 Sonority and the Typology ______________________________________ 45 ix 2.5 Analysis of the Generalizations ___________________________________ 47 2.5.1 Harmonic Orderings or Markedness Relations____________________ 47 2.5.2 The Factorial Typology and the Implicational Universals ___________ 50 2.5.3 Harmonic Completeness _____________________________________ 53 2.5.4 Relative Well-formedness and Harmonic Bounding ________________ 54 2.5.5 The Inputs and the Candidate Set ______________________________ 57 2.5.6 Harmonic Bounding and Well/ill-formedness in Type 1 languages ____ 60 2.5.7 Ill-formedness and Repair Strategies ___________________________ 64 2.6 Greenberg’s Generalizations_____________________________________ 70 CHAPTER 3: CASE STUDIES ______________________________________ 74 3.1 Introduction __________________________________________________ 74 3.2 Case study I: Modern Greek _____________________________________ 75 3.2.1 Introduction _______________________________________________ 75 3.2.2 Lexical Strata in Modern Greek _______________________________ 76 3.2.3 Modern Greek Obstruent System and Syllable Structure____________ 76 3.2.4 Dimotiki Obstruent Clusters _________________________________ 80 3.2.4.1 Neutralization of SF Clusters and their Ill-formedness___________ 81 3.2.4.2 Neutralization of FF _____________________________________ 84 3.2.4.3 Neutralization of SS _____________________________________ 86 3.2.5 STOP+s clusters ___________________________________________ 90 3.2.6 Lexicon Stratification and Modern Greek ________________________ 95 3.3 Case Study II: Lushootseed-Nisqually _____________________________ 99 3.3.1 Introduction _______________________________________________ 99 3.3.2 Obstruent Clusters and Syllabic Obstruents in Nisqually ___________ 99 3.3.3 The analysis _____________________________________________ 103 3.3.3.1 2-Obstruent Sequences __________________________________ 103 3.3.3.2 Sequences Containing Affricates ___________________________ 108 3.3.3.3 3-Obstruent Sequences __________________________________ 110 x CHAPTER 4: PLACE GENERALIZATIONS___________________________ 118 4.1 Introduction ________________________________________________ 118 4.2 Onset Place Restrictions_______________________________________ 119 4.3 Release-sensistive Faithfulness and Place Neutralization _____________ 120 4.4 Case Study III: English ________________________________________ 124 4.4.1 The English Obstruent System________________________________ 125 4.5 Case Study IV: German ________________________________________
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